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​The Dillons of Clonbrock

26/11/2021

5 Comments

 
By Barry Lally
Picture
Clonbrock House 1860
Some years ago I was privileged to open a photographic exhibition in the old public library on Ballinasloe’s Fair Green.  It consisted of a selection of photographs from the Dillon Collection that had been acquired by the National Library in 1977.  I remember remarking at the time on the exceptional quality of the prints, some dating back to the 1860s, and embracing practically every aspect of life on a landed estate in the latter half of the 19th century and the early decades of the succeeding one.  Here we had family portraits featuring the ladies of the household in their voluminous crinolines, estate servants, tenants, farming operations and festive occasions:  the vivid record of a bygone age.  No professional had ever been employed, everything was the work of the Dillons whose story is surely worthy of recall.
 
The Dillons of Clonbrock, Ahascragh, were the branch of a family descended from the Anglo-Norman Sir Henry de Leon who came to Ireland with the future King John in 1185.  Thomas Dillon, an eminent lawyer and judge, bought the original Clonbrock estate from the widow of Tadhg O’Kelly in the 1580s.  Over the following three centuries the Dillon estate expanded to become the third largest in County Galway, eventually reaching a maximum of 28, 246 acres with only the Marquis of Clanricarde’s estate and Lord Dunsandle’s being larger.
 
Suspected of involvement in the Rebellion of 1641 because of their Catholicism, some of the family’s lands were confiscated by the Cromwellian authorities but were recovered  in 1663 following the restoration of Charles II.  After the Jacobite War the family survived an attempt by the Trenches of Garbally to get part of their estate as a reward for claiming that the Dillons had fought on King James’s side at the Battle of Aughrim.  In the early 1700s, however, they were obliged to convert to the Established Church to avoid a threat to the integrity of their estate posed by the Penal Laws.
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Robert Dillon (1754 – 1795), known as “Beau Dillon”, was raised to the peerage of Ireland by the title of Baron Clonbrock in 1790.  A man of extravagant habits, he spent much time abroad and set a pattern for his successors by a virtual unending sequence of travels to Europe, including London and Bath, as well as a four-month sojourn in Dublin each year at his Harcourt Street townhouse.  He built Clonbrock House in the 1780s to a design by William Leeson.
 
His son Luke Dillon (1780 – 1826) inherited the title in 1795.  When he left Oxford and returned to his estate he set himself to improve the place by buying books, pictures and furniture for the house.  One lot of 14 pictures cost him a thousand guineas, and in 1800 he began to assemble the library, spending £738 on books over the next six years.  Fond of music, he also had a good knowledge of paintings, tastes he indulged during a three-month continental tour in 1824.  He was active against the Ribbonmen, agrarian terrorists, in 1819, and had “established a chain of signals by bonfires and patrols at the head of 40 well-armed followers every other night at least, and at any hint of the approach of these rascals a fire is lighted and 300 or 400 fellows are, or have been, in less than an hour at some specified rendezvous.”

 Unlike their more sober-minded neighbours the Trenches, whose only sporting interest was the promotion of cricket, the Dillons appear to have enjoyed an endless round of fox-hunting, shooting and yachting in both Ireland and England.  They never practiced duelling, a vice almost exclusively confined to the minor landowners. Their wealth, however, failed to protect them from chronic ill-health which continued to plague them during the 19th century, necessitating prolonged annual stays at the French resorts of Arcachon and Pau.  They earned a reputation as exemplary landlords, never resorting to mass evictions, whose well-run estate was complemented by a superbly-tended demesne, and who cultivated the goodwill of their tenants with lavish entertainments. Staunchly Tory and Unionist in outlook, the Dillons were said to have respected their tenants’ political opinions yet were known to issue instructions on whom to vote for at elections.  The Third Baron seems not to have been universally popular.  He, together with his gardener and his steward, received threatening letters in 1869.  Infuriated rather than afraid, Clonbrock summoned his entire staff to inform them that if any injury should befall the two servants he would shut up his home and retire from Ireland, thus throwing them all out of employment.
 
Relatively new and expensive in the 1860s, photography as a hobby could only be   pursued by members of a well-to-do and leisured class like the Dillons.  Augusta Caroline Crofton (1839 – 1928) had already developed a keen interest in photography by the time of her marriage in 1866 to Luke Dillon (1834 – 1917) who shared her enthusiasm, and three years later a studio and darkroom, known as the photographic house, was built at Clonbrock.  Together they had three daughters and a son, all of whom became avid photographers and whose work in this field continued up the late 1920s.

Though the estate was only slightly affected by the Land War of the 1880s, the fair rent fixing terms of the 1881 Land Act resulted in economic cutbacks, and in 1886 five servants were made redundant as a consequence. The Wyndham Act of 1903 offered very advantageous terms to landlords to sell and for tenants to purchase their farms. However, the Fourth Baron had a sentimental attachment to his estate and set his face against selling.  On the other hand, his tenants, realizing that it would cost them less in annuities if they bought their farms than they would have to pay in rents, subjected the estate to extreme agitation between 1903 and 1907.   In 1909 the Baron felt he had no alternative but to sell, and by the start of the First World War he had disposed of the majority of his tenanted lands for the rough equivalent in today’s money of €20 million.  He invested in global stocks and shares which were disastrously affected by the Russian Revolution of 1917 and the 1929 Wall Street Crash.   After 1929 the Dillons could no longer afford to employ servants.  Robert had succeeded his father as the Fifth Baron in 1917 but died unmarried eight years later when the title became extinct. His sister Ethel (1880 – 1978) continued to reside at Clonbrock up to the 1960s.  She seems to have been a lady of a conservative cast of mind.  A favourite saying of hers was, “All change is for the worse.”  The estate eventually passed to her grand-nephew, Sir Luke Dillon Mahon, who sold what remained of it in the mid-1970s.  In 1984 the house was accidentally destroyed by fire.    
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5 Comments
Neela Mann
28/12/2021 09:43:08 am

Dear Barry Lally,
Most interesting article, thank you. I am researching the Le Poer Trench family as there is a memorial to Colonel The Hon Sir Robert Le Poer Trench (1782-18230 erected by his brother Richard, 2nd Earl of Clancarty, in St Mary Minster, Cheltenham's Parish Church, Gloucestershire. I am doing a talk on the stories of the people behind the memorials and have seen the Trench article. I can't seem to find why the memorial would be in Cheltenham, except one of their brothers - the Archbishop of Tuam, gave sermons in local churches to raise money for the Tuam Diocesan Education Society in 1835 and members of the family seemed to live in Cheltenham (Rev W and Lady Louisa up to 1843) . 1840 Frances Catherine, eldest daughter of the late Col The Hon Sir Robert (whose memorial is in the church) married in this church in 1840.
What may interest you is that I found a Death Notice for Letitia Dowager Lady Clonbrock, in the Cheltenham Chroncile on 10th June 1841. The Dowager was the daughter and heiress of Mr Clement Archer and married Lord Clonbrock, grandfather of the (in 1841) present Lord in 1776 by whom she had 3 children - the ate Viscountess Ennismore, Luke, 2nd Lord Clonbrock. Her third child - The Hon Miss Letitia - married The Hon Robert Le Poer Trench. I haven't yet found whose son he is!
I'd be most interested if you could shed some light on Col The Hon Sir Robert Le Poer Trench's whereabouts. I have all his military achievements on the monument, a photo of which I can send you if you let me know your emial address.
Best wishes
Neela Mann

Reply
Barry Lally
1/2/2022 07:17:35 pm

Dear Neela Mann,
Thank you for your comments which have just come to my attention. Unfortunately, I don't have any information on Sir Robert Le Poer Trench. However, a New Zealand acquaintance of mine, Rod Smith, is, I believe, writing a history of the Trench family. He may be able to help. Rod's email address is [email protected]. Mine is [email protected].
Best regards,
Barry Lally

Reply
Neela Mann
1/2/2022 07:25:58 pm

Many thanks for the reply Barry. I will send an email to Rod Smith. I have time to do this luckily so I may in fact do two different talks as there are so many interesting memorials.
Best wishes

Neela

Ged Gamble
15/2/2022 08:41:55 am

Thank you so much for this information. I believe that my Great Grandparents may have worked on the Estate, before marrying and emigrating to England?

Reply
Denis P. McGowan
1/1/2024 03:06:08 pm

Thank you for such an informative and well-written article, Barry.

My maternal Grandmother, Rose Teresa Nolan, nee Finnerty’s people were from Ahascragh in Co. Galway, and worked as landscapers and groundskeepers for the Baron and Baroness Clonbrock, the Dillon family, a fine family. They were known to be very kind wealthy Anglo-Irish Ascendancy landowners, who had the deer in their park culled during An Gorta Mor to help feed the tenant farmers and their families, and paid for beds in Galway City’s hospital to ensure that their workers and tenants had the best care if ill or injured. Grandma Rose always had good things to say for them.

One of her brothers joined an Irish regiment in 1900 to go and fight in the Boer War, and her Mam went to Baroness Clonbrock, Augusta Caroline Crofton, and asked her to help prevent him from joining the British Army. Baroness Clonbrock told her that she should be proud of her son for wanting to serve his Queen-Empress and to fight for the Empire as a good and loyal British subject as her son was also in South Africa fighting the Boers as a Lieutenant with the Rifle Brigade. Baroness Clonbrock’s son, Charles Allen Dillon, would die from wounds received in action against the Boers in South Africa on 8 June 1901. My Grandma’s brother came back after the Boer War and was not welcomed in Ahascragh. He ended up going to England and working in a bank as a clerk and never returned to Ireland and married an English Catholic woman and raised their family in London.

The Clonbrock Estate at its peak was 28,000 acres, and encompassed a good part of East Galway. The Dillons originally lived in Clonbrock Castle, an old 15th century four-story tower house built in 1475 by Tadgh O’Kelly (that has been recently purchase in 2006 and was fully restored in a major six-year restoration project and turned into a private residence in 2012). The castle was accidently burned down in 1807 as a result of a fireworks display to celebrate the birth of the second Baron Clonbrock’s son and heir.

The family were well-liked and respected but were completely broke and unable to support the old heap of a place. The last member of the Dillon family to live at Clonbrock manor, Ms. Ethel Louisa Dillon, never married, and moved out in 1976. Ms. Dillon passed away at the fine old age of 99 years on 24 November 1978, and her funeral service and burial was held at at St. Catherine's Church (C of I).

The contents of the manor house were auctioned off in a six-day auction by Luke Dillon Mahon. He said it was impossible for one person to care for the place, with its cold rooms and leaky roof.The National Library of Ireland acquired much of their library and papers, which gave a very good accounting of the operations and management of a large Irish country house and the estate.

Sadly, in 1984, a fire burned down the Clonbrook manor, and destroyed the very intricate and ornate interior. It is currently a shell now, with the grounds and the remaining structure overgrown by ivy and a great deal of trees and bushes.

Someone bought it a few years back in 2016 for 67,500 euros, but I cannot find out if work has been performed on it. Sad end to a fine old house and a fine old family.

Thank you again for your research and very interesting article. It is an important part of both Galway's and Ireland's history.

Very best regards,

Denis Patrick McGowan, New York City

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